R&D Tax Incentive for Industry 4.0 | Aeronautics Case Study

Research and Development (R&D) Tax Incentive for Industry 4.0 | Aeronautics Case Study

Multiple technical innovations and improvements have swept through the aeronautics industry in the past few years. When combining big data analytics with real time sensors and machine monitoring equipment, businesses are enabled to make informed decisions regarding quality control, maintenance scheduling, and improved production processes. Smart robots can access high heat and electrical areas to increase safety on the production floor while increasing the speed of production. Parts can be designed faster and require less materials, resulting in a smaller, lighter, and less expensive parts when additive manufacturing is properly implemented.

Outlined below are some examples of aeronautics companies that have successfully implemented Industry 4.0 technologies into their day-to-day operations.

Airbus 
Airbus is a leader in the design, manufacturing, and delivery of aerospace products, services, and solutions. They have over 130,000 employees that build innovative commercial aircrafts across the world.

Airbus partnered with Accenture to develop smart glasses to decrease the mistakes made and time required to outfit an Airbus aircraft. The smart glasses allow the operators to see the specific cabin plan, customer requirements, and marking zone. With the new technology, operators mark the cabin floors more quickly and error rates have been reduced to essentially zero. The smart glasses are interconnected to other technologies that enable barcode scanning, cloud data retrieval, voice command, and augmented reality functionalities.[1]

The Airbus A330 is a wide-body aircraft that has been around since the 1970s. Before the introduction of smart glasses, it took three people three days to mark the equipment positions on the cabin floor. The process required analysis of complex drawings and measurement conversions. Now with smart glasses, the same process takes one person six hours to complete with significant reductions in placement errors. In total the smart glasses cut the labour time to outfit an Airbus aircraft by more than 90%. With the success of smart glasses in the Airbus A330 assembly, Airbus expanded the use of smart glasses to mounting flight test equipment.[2]

Safran Group 
Safran Group is a legacy aerospace manufacturer operating in aerospace propulsion, aircraft equipment, defence, aerosystems, and aircraft interiors. It has more than 76,000 employees in 31 countries. Within Australia, Safran Group is focused on the aerospace and defence segments.

Safran Group has embraced Industry 4.0 advancements with the digital transformation of its manufacturing facilities across the globe. Manufacturing practices at Safran are being transformed with:

• Virtual reality which enables employees to produce virtual models of facilities to anticipate needs and risks with greater accuracy.
• 3D simulation produces entire facility models to test resistance and functions before facility designs are finalised.
• Closed door machining utilises autonomous robotic machines to maximize productivity and free up operators to focus on higher value-added tasks.
• Collaborative robots, or “cobotics”, have been introduced to the Transducer Unit assembly line to combine the robot’s strength, precision and repetition abilities with human added values of historical knowledge, analysis and decision-making abilities.
• Big Data is optimising custom monitoring and improving manufacturing efficiencies with detailed analytics based on real-time data.
• Additive Manufacturing capabilities are being brought together at the Safran Additive Manufacturing Campus. The facilities will include a materials characterization laboratory, experimentation rooms, digital simulation tools, and data connectivity to continuously improve process controls and part quality.[3]